Allan Joyal: Blog

Just a rant about the modern movie

Every once in a while I feel a need to rant. Today's rant comes after I watched the "Guardians of the Galaxy" film yesterday. Now I really enjoyed the movie. It was funny, well paced, well cast and written by people who seemed to understand that being entertaining didn't mean being stupid.
Sadly, before I got to watch the film I had to sit through trailers.
Ugh!
I can't even remember if there were five or six.
I can't even remember all of the names of the movies that had trailers before Guardians of the Galaxy. I can state that after seeing the trailers there was not one film I was interested in seeing.
None.
Nada.
After all, I can remember the name of one perfectly and that mostly because with a name like "Boxtrolls" its hard to get it confused. But this is a movie I'm not interested in. Sorry, but while I like animated films, this one seemed like it was pieced together from some vague idea and then turned into a movie. Worse, the drawings were maybe at the level of "Coraline". I might like an occasional Claymation film, but if I'm watching that level of graphics, let it be real Claymation and not drawings.
But that was not the worst trailer. No, the winner of that prize was a trailer for a film titled something like "Alexander's Horrible, Terrible, No-good, Very Bad Day." I probably got it a bit wrong, but since I will never watch this movie, I really don't care about getting the name right. First, I vaguely remember a children's book with this name from like 40 years ago. But the trailer was for some potty humor comedy.
Well, not potty humor, but about as low-brow and insulting as you can get without descending into jokes about poop. Good lord the preview lasted less than five minutes and managed to have 3 scenes I despised.
First, they show the "hero" who is an eight to ten year old boy in bed, listening to a teenage boy making rather sexual comments. They reveal that for some insane reason the hero and his sixteen year old older brother share a bedroom and the older brother is actually trying to talk to his girlfriend. Of course, miscommunications ensue as first the "hero" and then the girlfriend misinterpret things being said by the older brother.
Um, do the writers not have older siblings?
I know that when I was growing up if I had dared to listen in and comment on a conversation my older sibling was having on the phone I'd be lucky to survive the experience. And my sisters are nice people. (keep a grudge too long, but that's another rant.). Here they have a 16 year old rooming with a boy 6-8 years younger. And the younger kid isn't duct taped to the ceiling? Not bloody likely in any house. (and from what little I could see of the house, there were plenty of bedrooms so the only reason for the two to room together was for this one scene.
But that was only the first scene that made absolutely no sense to anyone with half a brain.
Next, the father is going to a job interview for a VP position at a game design company. Then the writers of this travesty decide to throw in a double-whammy.
First, the father didn't research the company? I know that at the middle management level some interviewees will only do a brief check on a company, but in today's job market applicants receive constant reminders to "research any company you are going to interview at." So right from the start this scene plays out falsely to anyone who's ever had to interview for a job. (something the writers apparently have zero experience with.)
But that wasn't all, when the father was about to leave for the interview mother holds out the baby and forces daddy to take the baby to the interview……..
WTF!!!!!
No!
Hell No!
Of course, the results of this scene are predictable to anyone with even a quarter of a brain, but the writers seemed to think they could play it off as a surprise.
Me, I'm trying to figure out who could conceive of anyone interviewing for a VP position and who would bring a baby to the interview. I thought no one was dumb enjoy to come up with the idea that this would be funny, but obviously, I forgot the maxim that "No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public."
And then there was more! I know, I've already revealed 2 scenes that require that one have no concept of life to write, but the writers weren't done insulting the intelligence of men.
The older brother's big day was that he was taking his driving test. Hey, it's a rite of passage for most teenage boys and the ones I've known have taken it very seriously.
They even show the start of the test. The older brother is driving with the examiner when the older brother's cell phone rings. He intelligently says "I never use a cell phone in a car." Which is not only smart, but it's the bloody fucking law in almost every state in the nation and if you break a driving law on your test you FAIL.
But when the brother mentions that its probably his girlfriend calling about prom, and the examiner mentions "you only get prom once." The writers had a major brain fart and have the brother pick up and answer his phone.
REALLY?
During a driving test?
I've heard of abject stupidity, but this was…. I can't find the words.
Insulting.
Unfunny in the extremely.
And it definitely turned me off the idea of watching this movie.
Ever.
I shouldn't be surprised though. Hollywood has been degenerating for the last 30 years or so, and comedy is effectively dead. At least in my mind. Movies like this one, which are supposedly comedies, but rely almost totally on the viewer being willing to laugh at stupid people doing even stupider things and surviving isn't comedy in my opinion.
What's scary is that while writing this I just remembered another of the trailers and movies I definitely don't want to see. The sequel to Dumb and Dumber was previewed as well. I didn't watch the first and I sure won't bother to watch the second. The few scenes they did show were much like the other trailer I just commented about, there was a complete reliance on characters who are so dumb they would lose a game of tic-tac-toe played against themselves.
I can't watch movies that rely on that.
They are insulting.